House of Sol
by anikam
Summary: "Forgetting is mundane, but recollection is divine. Choose divinity, habiibii; gods don't bleed." But as Katara Jaan stained her fingers and inhaled sweet oblivion, forgetting seemed divine and recollection for the weak. Afterall, Zuko did not need her memories. So what use have she for them?
1. Monotony

**WARNING: **Rated mature for dark themes, strong language, graphic violence, drug abuse, and sexual content. This includes smut and non-con. Basically, this is going to be a really dark story, so read at your own discretion.

**A/N: **_**This chapter is completely revised.**_

Chapter 1 – Monotony

_97 AG, Lakhnau_

Two hulking, vermillion sentinels stand as the true arbiters of the gatekeeper's powers. Bended from blood sandstone towering one hundred feet above the Si Wong Desert by only the most precise and inspiring hands, the Great Gate looms over its blossoming orchids, the budding plants, and screeching insects that attempt to encroach on its domain – strong stone walls branching out from each pillar to encase the district in a cocoon. The width of space that separates the vermilion pillars offers an almost endearing, airy comfort, but the pillars themselves are so authoritarian in their constitution that even men – or the insects? – consider the Great Gate the elementally weathered god of the Red Desert. If the Great Gate is the god of the Red Desert, then, merely befitting her grandiose columns, arabesque inlays, and inner ring perch, the House of Sol is his consort – or rather, he is hers. The House of Sol surveys her district, musing from her sandy perch the merits of each flower – rose, lily, cherry blossom – and each insect, no matter how filthy or parasitic, and, seemingly, without prejudice – for what is a god if she is not impartial? Sometimes, however, she finds herself tolerating her consort's presence, dreaming in vivid red hues what a sight it would be to see that obstruction's decline into tiny, crisp vermillion pebbles crowding a gatekeeper's feet.

Katara, Lakhnau's silver-tongued enchantress, fosters these musings as she reclines on the window sill of her apartment. The House won't be receiving clients today, so she allows a bare leg beyond the sill – balancing a loosely bound leather book on her thigh. Her delicate wrist guides the ink as she transcribes antiquated lines of poetry given to her by her premier accompanist, Tansen, who described it as, "Something you might recall." Her mother tongue, Iñamaq, sung to her from its confines of dry, flaky ink – speaking of walls of iridescent ice and a lake where the primordial spirits danced in perpetuity. The words felt unfamiliar though, as if she might only recognize them in the wavering cadence of a child's voice or a mother's cries.

"Darya Jaan!" A loud voice beckons from the doorway, "the Begum wants you in the gardens." The handmaiden pushes at the airy fabric hanging from her mistress' doorframe, slipping into the quarters with an air of ownership.

"You're worse than a manager!" Katara shrieks, grasping onto the window ledge as the book plummets to the floor. "Next time, if you could lightly rap on the wall that'd be _fantastic_. And y'know, I really do prefer Katara."

The handmaiden shrugs her shoulders, motioning towards the gardens with a slight tip of her head. "The Begum is waiting for you, Darya Jaan," she bites, "And anytime you're late, she thinks I took too long to deliver the damn message. So, when you start arriving promptly, I'll start calling you Katara." Her expression is smug, with an upturned brow and bored, dark eyes. Lakhnau had not birthed the handmaiden, Song, onto her trembling cobblestones soaked through with blood, semen, and afterbirth. Song's life had it's inception in the rice stalks of her western farming village, where her father bucked and spilled his seed into a woman he'd come to call lover, wife, and mother. That is, until the day a Fire Nation soldier broke his jaw and forced him aboard a ship bound for the colonies.

"We're going to have to get rid of that country, backwoods mouth of yours. This is a house of refinement, my dear," Katara laughs, gathering her books into her arms and draping a saffron sari about her frame – its unblemished white him garnished with fine gold tracery. A frail smile twitches at the corner of Song's mouth, and she considers that this laughter (along with her vice) must be her medicine. Her mistress is brown and beautiful with a glare only the sun could match, but Song traces the black tips of her fingers and the mask of serenity on her face and knows that suns die as well.

Song had first met Katara outside the vermillion desert almost a month ago. She stood at the back of a manager, looming over a his shoulder as he processed Song's residential permit. He called her Darya Jaan in between laughter. Katara had referred to him as Abbas, and they spoke in amicable taunts and ridicules, a banter that Abbas had clearly relished – the tell-tale signs of a raised, crinkled brow and a curled lip on his pointed features had amused Song. Upon procuring Song's identification from her purveyor – a bushy-eyed man with a penchant for narcissism and irregular bathing – stamped the permit with the sigil of the Flower District. Naturally, the District had been named by a confederation of lecherous men, so prostitutes, philosophers, and like often referred to it as the Red Desert as a form of resistance. The sigil of the District was a red cherry blossom not by accident, with each blossom stylized as a three-pronged flame - the seal of the Red Empire.

"How much do you want for the girl, sayyd?" Katara had piped up, plucking Song's permit from the purveyor's fingers. Confused by Katara's apparent disregard for social order, regarded Katara briefly before inquiring from Abbas where he could find a jaan of the House of Sol. I must sell this plain sow, he said with a rough air and a quiver of chin whiskers. Katara grinned. She said, "You are looking for a jaan, hm? Look no further. How much do you want for this plain _sow_?" The final word sprouted from her lips with the unhurried nature of molasses and the purveyor looked at her with unmasked reproach.

He sputtered, "Two-hundred silver pieces, jaan! I will take no less." The gray tufts of chin hair Katara was certain he'd call a beard trembled.

Katara clucked her tongue, "No, no, no! I pay no more than one-hundred silver pieces for a sow, sayyd." She arose from behind Abbas and strewn ninety silver pieces across the table, lifting a perfect brow in challenge. Song heard the enchantress' jest, the jingle of the coins – or was it her ghungroos? – and raised her gaze to the brush of her bangs. Katara's elegant hand was perched on her hip, the tip of her thumb brushing against the skin of her bare midriff. Her body leaned with the regality of queens, the eroticy of whores, and of women drawing water from wells. Hers was the everywoman of the three remaining nations, and the enchantress' sooty fingertips sang of their pain.

"You said one-hundred silver pieces, jaan…" His shrouded eyes counted the coins as two unruly gray bushels conjoined at the knot in his forehead, "This is only ninety – you must have miscounted." It was more of an assertion than an acknowledgment of a mistake.

"I didn't miscount, sayyd," Katara said, "I thought better of it."

By Lakhnau standards, Song was little more than a country bumpkin – straw hat and ruddy complexion in tow – and the plainness of her prior life was unacquainted with this brand of rapport. She had been used to paddy fields and pungent salves; to a plain man whose words held no edge and whose hands were worn to the crease with iron and life, and a woman whose skin hung from her bones with age and maternity. As Song stood listening to the mocking intonations of her new master and the light jingle of bartering, plainness appeared a novelty. Only the naked meanness of her purveyor snarled with familiarity. "Here! Take your sow!" he barked as he wrenched Song forward by her wrist before clawing the coin into a cupped hand. He mumbled something incoherent about Lakhnau and thieves, and then trudged off in a huff of quivering gray whiskers. "May her milk be sour, jaan!" he roared.

"Lovely parting gift," Katara waved to the purveyor's back, but her new charge had interests so separate from the fat man swaddled in blue she didn't bother to bid him goodbye. Song's interests laid with the blue-eyed enchantress who paid for her as one might a cow, yet treated her more human than anyone had since that red morning in Taebaek. "Come along," Katara called to Song, "We live at the House of Sol, where you'll develop a distaste for men and an addiction to opium. Actually, the opium will come later, but the point remains. Abbas, _hassalal-a_."

Song, fumbling with her belongings in the heat of pursuit, silently condemned Abbas' robust laughter as the vermillion gate receded into the distance. His affection for her master was unconcealed, and she found his candor impolite and, much to her hilarity, pitiful. "Darya Jaan, that Abbas man is too forward, don't you think?" she inquired.

"Abbas isn't a shy man, but he respects my profession and my discretion. He'll grow on you. Just wait 'till he extends your permit by a couple of hours – then, you might even love the man." She smiled. "You have other questions though. Am I right?"

Song made no remark. She cast her eyes to the ground and studied the flecks of dust splattering her bare feet, thinking of Taebaek. "The House of Sol," Katara began, "is, what I like to refer to as a finishing school for whores. We recite poetry and dance for patrons, fuck patrons, and cultivate an intellect to ensnare and un_wit_ our patrons. But don't worry. We fuck less than we sing, and we sing _often_." She beckoned Song to walk beside her, placing a hand in the small of Song's back. "I apologize for being crass. I don't really have a head for pleasantries in the daylight hours – with having to be so pleasant in the dark."

Song nodded, having listened more to Katara's voice than her words. The Enchantress spoke Irfali, the mother tongue of Lakhnau, with ease, but another language with a musical cadence and a contemplative, soft tone lied beneath her words. "I'm Song," Song whispered and, then louder, "In Taebaek, I worked with my family in the rice fields and at the local apothecary – my mother took to medicine after my father was taken by the soldiers. I make – made medicinal salves. I am, of course, willing to assist you in any way I know how."

"You choose your words very carefully," Katara said, "but, do you think you could be like me?" Katara secures her sari with a flick of her dark fingertips, stained from mehndi and habitual opium use. Song's grandmother had hands like hers, slender and stained, from when she would retreat to her room in those quiet hours and take up her pipe. The old woman would emerge with a cloudy stare and a drunken smile, floating through the house before settling into the position she'd assume for the next hour or so.

"Darya Jaan, I would never imagine to be anyone other than myself. The only service I'm in the habit of providing is of the medicinal sort."

A smile tugged at the corners of Katara's mouth and her ears stung with envy. If only she had been so bold at sixteen; she might have gutted the Admiral with the same jagged knife she nightly uses to dispose of men in her dreams. But no, impossible, she considers. She was crystalline, a shell of a girl with the body and the legacy of a million women. Song is flesh, bones, and blood, and the toughness of her speech sings of her strength. "Then," she began, "I will convince the Begum your talents lie elsewhere. But a word of caution, Song: hold your tongue around the Begum– she sneers at young, cheeky girls like you." Envy hangs off her final word as the vermillion gate recedes into the golden blur of the Red Desert.

Where, as though sanity were dependent on life's monotony, whores kicked up their feet in sandy streets and quick fucks passed like coins between hands. They threw water across their doorsteps, nuzzled their young, and ground their meat with loud and brilliant spices until the smell permeated their hair, skin, and clothes. The sun sunk below the horizon, and the whores coaxed the hungry mouths of new, ill-begotten infants from their teats and into the soft, fleshy arms of an old prostitute. Smelling of lavender or jasmine or cassia, they lit red lanterns outside homes or brothels and caressed the endeavors of idle men through the long night.

But two men didn't cross the threshold of the Great Gate that night. One leaned against the vermillion post with the swagger of a thief, chewing on tobacco and undressing women with his eyes. The black-haired man stood erect, restless and agitated. His face was marred in angry pink and red scar tissue on the left, and his fair skin had a golden sheen from six years of maritime travel. He screwed his eyebrows together and groaned, turning to his companion. "For fucks sake, Jet, where is she?!" he cried.

"Do I look like a fucking fortune teller?" asked the shaggy-haired man. "If you really want to see her, maybe you should walk through the gate instead of loitering outside it like a fucking creep." The black-haired man considered it, briefly, before dismissing it as deranged and likely to incur a head injury. Six years had passed since he boarded _the_ _Miko_, where he employed sellswords and a handful of Red Empire soldiers to assist in his – or his father's? – colonial exploits. She had cursed him – not with words, but with her accusing blue gaze that, for once, looked icy. She had done or said nothing unkind to Jet – they parted with a hug. Instead, she reserved her hatefulness for the spoiled ex-Prince whose only loyalty was to his mad family. At whatever cost, that loathly prefix and word – banished – was stricken from his title when his father reentered him into the line of succession. He was heir apparent to the Red Empire, but he didn't have the courage to talk to a woman.

"I can't do it. I won't. She can die in this shithole for all I care," the Prince said.

"Okay, look 'ere. I can't take much more of your bitchin' and moanin' anymore. Either we go to the House of Sol to see Katara or I'm fucking that whore, right there," Jet explained, pointing to a woman with large breasts, wide hips, and a profound air of superiority. She raised her nose at him. "And you can go home and suffocate your regrets with some ganja. You hear me?"

Zuko refused to look at him. "Yeah, yeah. I hear you. If you see Katara give her my regards." He turned his back on the Red Desert, his hands itching to hold Lakhnau's glorious enchantress.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own any of the characters from _Avatar: The Last Airbender, _but I think that goes without saying. Why am I writing this?

**A/N: **As you can probably tell, I've changed several things in the Avatar World - including location names and the ethnic makeup. I was actually inspired by pugletto's worldbending art series, so if you haven't seen them I encourage you to check them out. Initially, I was using natural human languages in this story, but there is far too much potential for that to go awry, so I just made up my own. Anyway, I hope you liked it! If you do, please review or favorite!


	2. Peace Talks

Chapter 2 – Peace Talks

_97 AG, Lakhnau, Upper District_

"These people…" He began, "They're so separated from each other and the rest of the world. The desert tribes vie against each other for territory – and who knows what else! – and the Earth King turns a blind eye. What are these so-called autonomous kingdoms, really, more than primitive kings governing a primitive people? What is this Earth King more than a peasant dressed in green silk?"

General Hiro is an unimpressive man. His features are composed in such a manner that he appears permanently upset – his mouth droops at the corners, the brown of his eyes is so dull as to inspire sleep, and, as a result of a partnership between age and gravity, the bags of his eyes sag with inspiring persistence. But Hiro's wife, Min, is the proverbial savior of the family in both beauty and temperament. Piercing golden eyes and a small pout of a mouth, all set in an unblemished white face, is the Empire's standard of beauty, and her airy voice and slight gestures provide a reprieve from her husband's gruffness. She smiles the practiced genial reserve of the nobility and motions to the teapot in front of her. "Would you like some ginseng, my Lord?" she asks.

"Thank you, Min." Zuko nods. He couldn't say he thought the desert people primitive or that he felt the urge to exert the Empire's authority over their communities, but his father's aspirations made such thoughts treason, so he replied: "I have decided the desert tribes won't be our primary focus this season. We'll shift our attention to Ba Sing Se instead, and undergo a second and final expedition to breach the city."

The General hums, turning to his wife with a raised brow. "You don't think the desert tribes will try to intervene?" she asks.

He takes a sip of ginseng, grimacing inwardly. Zuko's hatred for tea runs nearly as deep as his hatred for his sister. He can only Uncle's tea – Iroh, the man whose siege of Ba Sing Se resulted in the death of his son and a usurping of his throne. Iroh seldom acknowledged the latter because the former made him unfit to pursue the legacy of their forefathers – in both matters of succession and honor. "I doubt it. There were minimal altercations with the desert tribes during the Great Siege – so far as the official reports indicate. Either way, I think they're more concerned with the safety of their own communities than that of an absent king," said Zuko. Nearly a decade on the sea had transformed his child's mind into that of a tactician's, and he was regarded throughout the Empire as a conqueror of sorts – colonizing territory with the wrathful colors of Empire and a motley crew of sellswords and Empire soldiers.

"Yes, I see," the General muses, "My forces are, of course, at your full disposal, Prince Zuko. But, if I may, when will you proceed with the siege? It takes nearly two months to reach the Wall, and it took General Iroh over a year to breach the outer wall."

If it hadn't been for the General's sincerity and his wife's unassuming smile, Zuko might have cuffed him for his presumption. "I'm in no rush, General Hiro," Zuko says, "Whenever my sister sees fit to grace Lakhnau with her presence is when the expedition will commence, and our tactics remain confidential until then." In spite of his efforts, his voice falters at the mention of Azula. The General and his wife don't seem to notice as they hum and nod in deference – their brows knotted with a severity of thought. But Zuko imagines they'll peck at the tissue around his eye when he leaves, redressing it in the ostentatious red of his banishment until they arrive at the matter of his restoration. They will, naturally, gravitate towards the topic of his beloved sister – the same woman who'd snickered with the sadistic glee of psychopath as their father bestowed upon Zuko his most impartial gift. The same woman – newly deposed, forgotten old hag of a girl, as Zuko likes to think of her – would be married off within the coming months. Azula was far too egocentric and sadistic to indulge a man's fantasies of wifehood – this would be hell for both of them, and Zuko relished such a reality.

"My Lord," The General interrupts, "You haven't seen Mai or Tom-Tom since your return? My son yearns for tales of your travels, and my lovely Mai has certainly missed the Prince's affection as of late."

Zuko lifts his gaze to examine the expectancy in the General's expression. The man hadn't even made an attempt at subtlety. "No, General, I haven't. I'll be certain to pay a visit to Tom-Tom and Mai before I leave," he says. The last time he visited Mai had been six years ago, as well. In spite of her icy personality, she, unlike Katara, hadn't reserved a cold farewell for him. Mai had sent a messenger hawk at a questionable hour and, upon his arrival, drew him into a room with the silk of her gown and the blush in her cheeks. Mai, of course, had been anything but coy, yet, as a woman known as only halfway tolerant of the male sex, Zuko hadn't left her chambers as the champion he'd imagined. He could clearly recall the closing of her legs, her upturned lips, and quiet snicker – a sound that rarely reached the most intimate of souls.

"You may as well say hello to Tom-Tom now – if there's nothing more to discuss, that is. He's just outside, in the courtyard," Min says, gesturing towards the light filtering through the latticed screen. "He has weekly lessons in the courtyard for Irfali – he speaks so poorly," she chuckles.

Zuko laughs, nodding. "It's no wonder, Lady Min. Irfali is such a very different language from Ryuggang. If I hadn't been raised in the Middle District I doubt I'd be nearly as fluent." He stands to his feet, pausing momentarily after the General and Lady Min follow suit. "I had heard something about a vigilante in the city. Is this something I should be concerned with, General?"

"He appeared only a couple weeks back, but hasn't been too much trouble. The Guard has the situation under control, so you needn't worried, my Lord. In that case, we'll meet at a later date – perhaps after your sister's nuptials? – to further discuss the siege," the General exclaims with that wide-eyed look of expectancy plastered all over his face again. Zuko had forgotten what it meant to be privy – to intelligence, military tactics, and a bloodline, even – so the General's transparency invigorates the Prince with a not-often felt righteousness. "And, my Lord," the General implores, "I'd like to extend mine and my clan's most fervent support. Welcome back into the fold, Prince of the Fire Nation and Rightful Heir to the Empire of the Red Sun." The General and his wife bow, their fists pressed into the palms of flat hands. "Long may the Ogedei Clan reign."

"I am grateful, General Hiro and Lady Min, " Zuko replies, "And I will remember your fidelity when I ascend the Red Throne. _Kikurembo_." Zuko braces a hand on the hilt of his blade, faintly lowering his head in gratitude, before departing the conference quarters and entering the General's resplendent gardens.

Aside from the Irfali influence, it is a close replica of the Royal Palace Gardens – as so far as Zuko's twelve years of absence can attest. The crooked maples hang with mossy green while other saplings boast clouds of bloodstained leaves, and the curdling of a waterfall stirs the sky's still blue in the pond's image. Every leaf, boulder, and muted drone of a cicada has been crafted and maintained so expertly as to give the impression of naturalism – in true Ryuggang fashion. As a child, Zuko had tumbled, sick with laughter and, occasionally, tears, through this garden's progenitor. It had been a sanctuary from his father's disdain and his sister's taunts, and the memory of his mother, Ursa, was the sanctuary's deity.

"Tom-Tom, pay attention." Muted by distance and the sound of the wind tossing leaves, a young woman's voice disrupts Zuko's nostalgia. He moves to follow the voice – slipping across the gardens with the caution of the hunted, as the familiar voice becomes more instructive than the sword at his hip. "How do you say 'I have eight dumplings' in Irfali?" demands the woman. Poised on a chair beside Tom-Tom, the woman busies herself with braiding thick strands of dark brown hair while eyeing the boy with hard azure eyes. He was stalling. Katara had taught the General's boy for three years, and during that time he had managed to cultivate a distaste for Irfali that rivaled her own for smoked sea slugs. "You are stalling," she says in Irfali.

Her temper's as short as ever, Zuko considers, instinctively concealing himself in the shade of a sapling. When _the Miko_ had docked, the singular thought that occupied Zuko's mind was Katara. The apathy in her eye had haunted his thoughts for six years, while pleading gasps and the memory of her hips bucking guided his hand. He felt less like a man in those times. I am a boy, he'd think, retreating to my memories for the caresses of a woman that hates me. So he'd peruse a city's flower district with his men before or after battle, searching for women to simply fuck in an attempt to reify his manhood. Naturally, Jet enjoyed these escapades most of all. He was the most sexually prolific man aboard _the Miko_ other than several veterans, and he had made for certain that each whore he'd met remembered this fact. But more often than not, Zuko would never complete the act to his – or her – satisfaction, and he'd slink out of her quarters with less money and an ache in his groin.

The boy replies staunchly in Ryuggang, "I have no idea what you're saying."

"Ji bulaň bulan suda," Zuko interrupted in Irfali, starting from his place of seclusion. "You might take your Irfali lessons more seriously, Tom-Tom. You'll need it if you want to become Governor of Lakhnau someday."

Tom-Tom clasps his hands over his mouth to keep from shouting, composing himself before dropping onto bended knee. His display of fealty is more than unnecessary and Katara mentally reminds to keep her temper – that is, after showing Zuko the deference his station is due. "My Lord Zuko, I'd like to extend mine and my clan's sincerest joy at your return to Lakhnau," says Tom-Tom with an air of nobility so grave neither Zuko nor Katara can keep from smirking. Zuko responds in their mother tongue, Ryuggang, and crooks an arm around the boy's slender neck in a brotherly gesture. "When did you return, my Lord?" Tom-Tom asks.

"Yesterday, but never mind that," Zuko says, "I hear you haven't been minding your teacher." Zuko looks at Katara out the corner of his eye, wary to meet her gaze. Her hands are crossed at the wrist and she stands almost constricted, as though an inch of movement might send her bounding across the gardens like a kelbi. Katara was never one to scare easy, so he assumes that she's restraining herself for his sake rather than her own. "She's the best teacher you'll ever have, and you can't get by in this town without the language – even if you are a noble. Do you understand?" Tom-Tom utters something incomprehensible, but nods in deference.

"How do you say 'I have eight dumplings' in Irfali, Tom-Tom." Zuko's eyes shoot up to meet her gaze – surprised at her persistence and frankness – and his hold loosens from around Tom-Tom's neck. It wasn't a question, and she was far too exhausted by both of their presences to put on any pretense.

Silence, and then the half-spoken, half-mumbled grunts of an ornery child meet their ears. "Ji bulaň bulan suda…" he whines, "Can I go now, Katara Jaan? Mai will want to know Lord Zuko's home."

Katara nods, crossing her arms across her chest. "Hassalal-a. I expect you to be more agreeable next week. If you aren't, I'm going to tell your mother." It isn't an empty threat. Katara doesn't make those and he knows it, so he bows with reverence to his teacher – forgetting to pay Zuko his respects – before running off to find his sister in a flurry of gangly, adolescent limbs.

The soft cries of a mantis and a bristling of leaves fill the silence, but nothing can quite fill the space between Katara and Zuko other than the wrestling, breathless force of tension. Katara remains constricted – poised to break into a run or, Zuko considers, plunge a dagger into his chest at any moment. So, he reasons, if these are my final moments of life I may as well ask after her. "So, how have you been Katara?" If it weren't for the silence of the General's gardens his words wouldn't have been audible, and if it weren't for the memory of her accusing glare he wouldn't have said anything at all.

**A/N: **SORRY. Life is really time consuming, but no one is really keeping track of this story anyway so I'm assuming I'm not in any trouble. Also, all of the non-English sounding words/phrases are either Irfali or Ryuggang - both conlangs of mine.


	3. Lovers' Quarrels

Chapter 3 – Lovers' Quarrels

_97 AG, Lakhnau, Upper District_

_So, how have you been Katara?_ "Lano subai-hibb hativ dith, Katara Jaan?"

Zuko asks in Irfali. He grows bold and lifts his gaze to meet hers, but Katara's hard eyes look beyond him while asserting her refusal through an erect posture and pursed lips. Standing there, in this imitation of the sacred, Zuko can't garner the typical anger he would express without hesitation in any other instance. Flinging his title in her face or shouting seems sacrilegious in this place, and, more than anything, Katara doesn't deserve his rage. She's not one to yield and he's certain that servile isn't apart of her vocabulary, let alone her character.

_Well, m'lord._ "Kyo, no hibo."

_Well? _"Kyo?" he considers. His eyebrows screw together in confusion at her response, but he attempts a warm grin. _There's no reason to address me so formally in Ryuggang, y'know. We're still friends_. "Yir-kotesh Ryugang ki thobvibai nul hativ shu. Heg veman hativ dith."

"That was six years ago," Katara responds in again Ryuggang.

Zuko feels the budding anger in the green imitation of the general's gardens, and feels as though he's being mocked. Pelt my head with rotten vegetables and fruit, he thinks, but at least shout your accusations in Irfali and write my name in its script. "Why won't you speak to me in Irfali?" A slight edge tinges his voice – rough, not sharp. If he yells, she'll have found her excuse to leave and he'll have to pelt rocks at her window like a boy. But, then, quiet laughter spills from her lips and it barrages his ears like an assault. Zuko's been prepared – no, preemptive – for every revolt, assassin's arrow, and throng of resilient benders for the past six years, but he'd never even considered a tactical maneuver to combat Katara. Maybe, he thought, because I've already been beat.

"Irfali? Zuko, you've grown funny in these past six years. You were never a funny boy," Katara says. Her lips slacken into a frown as she forgoes pretense. "So, you want me to speak to you in the tongue of the people you've conquered? If you weren't heir apparent I'd slit your throat."

So, these had been the words she'd withheld on the eve of his departure. She had been several inches shorter then and her cheeks still held some of their youth, but her tongue hadn't changed. If anything, it'd grown even more curt. Standing in the midst of the Red Desert six years ago, shrouded in the nocturnal silence of the vermillion gate, Zuko had felt the edge of her words without their sound and retreated like a scolded child. She was gone when he caught a backwards glance, but even now she stands in front of him with a mouth full of a heavy silence in spite of its sound.

"You couldn't have said that six years ago?" he asks with a hint of indignation.

She scoffs, asking, "Would it have changed anything?"

No, he thinks. Emperors and lords don't bat an eyelash at an exiled prince with a scarred face; they look favorably upon warriors that tout the colors of empire. He wouldn't be heir apparent if not for his colonial exploits – entirely financed by some paltry sum he'd earned and his Uncle Iroh, initially. He would've been an inkblot in the official history of the Fire Nation, if anything at all. But the assumption that he'd conquered the Irfal – the people of southwestern Earth Kingdom whose language he speaks, whose customs he understands as his own, whose people are more kin to him than the Ryuk – was dangerous. "I didn't _conquer_ the Irfal," he spat.

"What do you call orchestrating coups, destabilizing petty kingdoms and local governments for political gain?" Zuko lowers his gaze as she stands there interrogating him with a severe look about her countenance. He's silent, like a child whose just been scolded and can say nothing in his defense. His humility certainly didn't get in the way of his repudiation of 'conqueror'; instead, it had been his shame, but his blind, childlike devotion barred such introspection.

_You are not the people. _"Ryuk ga inohan," she says, "You are not Irfal. You are the Ryugg prince, and you proved yourself to be just that when you boarded that fucking ship. Don't tell me you didn't conquer us, and don't speak to me in Irfali, you sadistic asshole."

"I'm… Katara, I mean…"

Katara bends to pick up her belongings, a small bag crowded with crisp parchment paper, ink, pens, and a gatekeeper's woodblock flower token. She never intended to speak to him again before now. Perched on her apartment's window stoop, she'd daydream of some trite scene from a drama troupe where they'd lock eyes in a densely packed marketplace. Startled for only a fraction of a second, she'd regain her composure before looking through him at a stand of imported fruit. Then she'd disappear into the crowd, like an apparition, while he stood there stinking of regret and self-loathing and deciding whether to get the mango or papaya. But that was only a daydream, so Katara motions to leave the gardens, reality's bitter taste coating her teeth.

"I got you a present from Merchant's Pier."

Silence. She turns to look at him with an emotion aside from antipathy for the first time in their conversation or, better yet, the first time in six years. "Well, actually I stole it. But I stole it from pirates who stole it from someone else so I don't think my theft counts…" he pauses, "…nearly as much."

Silence. Again. Is he trying to play me? The silence stretches on and on, like a comedy or a drama (she can't decide which) where two principal characters stare at each other in confusion. She moves to say, "I don't want your fucking present, you pretentious fuck," but succumbs to the realization that the response would be juvenile and unbecoming, and Katara is never one to put herself in such a position. So she just stares at him, hoping he'll continue with his bumbling explanation until she can pick at an insecurity, which is, in fact, her specialty as a jaan.

"And, well, they were probably going to use it for kindling anyway, or sell it to some old library where it'd just gather dust and g–"

"I forgot you were well acquainted with our tutor, Lord Zuko." Katara and Zuko turn to face the direction where Tom-Tom had disappeared, finding Mai walking towards them with a slight smile playing on her lips. "You gave him Irfali lessons as a boy too, right? Just like Tom-Tom?"

Katara grins, masking her countenance with a veneer of geniality. "Yes, Lady Mai. But he's far better than Tom-Tom, you know, if only in terms of his attention span." Mai smiles – if the slight upturned corner of her lip can be called that – and Zuko discreetly rubs his palm against the fabric of his pants, racking his nerves. Mai. He'd almost forgotten her in the midst of his childish anxiety over seeing Katara and now, standing here, he can't think of a thing to say to a woman he remembered loving at some point, in some other life. "I'll be going then," Katara says. "Tell Tom-Tom I'll see him next week. Lord Zuko. Lady Mai_._" She bows and exits with an aristocrat's grace, leaving a trail of faint jasmine behind her and Zuko's ill-timed apology suspended in the air.

"You took your time coming back," Mai says.

She had been partially clothed and an insufferable tease the last time they had spoken, so their farewell had been amiable to say the least. When Zuko initially told her of his southwestern campaign, she had a map drawn up and marked locations with contacts loyal to her clan and, more importantly, her as an individual. All he'd have to do is drop her name and they'd extend their hospitality as though he were a son returning from war. No one could ever accuse Mai of being kindhearted, but Zuko understood her capacity for empathy and, as a consequence, she reserved an iota of friendliness for him and a few others. Shared kinship ties and an ancestral predisposition to conquest had bound them together in the past, but Katara had thrown all of that into question the day she remained silent and today, when her words were heavy with time.

"You're wearing your hair down," Zuko says.

"I'm guessing you haven't been around a lot of young Ryuk women lately, being in the southeast. It's the fashion though – in the capital – for noble women."

"You hate trends. And you hate messing with your hair and clothes more than anything," He laughs, "You've changed that much, hm?"

The corners of Mai's lips rise in mischief as she closes the gap between them, wrapping her arms about his waist and propping her chin up against his chest. "This is inappropriate, but I've missed you Zuko." She stretches upwards, her eyes flickering between his lips and eyes, but Zuko presses down onto her shoulders before she can recreate old, nearly forgotten memories. Her face slackens, muddled with confusion she hadn't anticipated upon his return. Zuko's skin had grown weathered, yet his countenance was more angular, regal even. He had abandoned his adolescent mop of a hairstyle, replaced by collar length locks tied into a knot at the rear of his head. Beneath his clothes she feels the tautness of his back and chest, and, in spite of all this, she hadn't accounted for the man standing in front of her – evading her touch with such an intent glare in his golden eyes.

"Do you think I did the right thing by leaving?" he asks.

Mai wrinkles together her eyebrows and sets her mouth in a tight line. "What kind of question is that?" she says. "Everyone from Lakhnau to Iddo is talking about the southeastern campaign and what you've done for the empire. You're the crown prince, your father's son and heir. If you hadn't left, you'd be the banished prince of the Fire Nation and you wouldn't be standing in my father's gardens right now. You'd be messing around with that blacksmith's boy outside of the Red Desert and working in your uncle's tea shop."

"There's nothing wrong with tea," Zuko starts.

"You know what I mean."

Six years ago he would've said, yes, of course. I reclaimed my title as heir apparent and prince, head of the Ogedei clan in matters of both politics and war, and I'll be damned if I give a shit that Katara refuses to understand. But 'conqueror' and 'traitor' are so thick on his tongue that he turns to leave, bidding Mai goodbye with the brevity of an old, unrequited love. "I've got a couple of loose ends to tie up with _the Miko_, but I'll see you before long," Zuko says, his eyes flickering from here to there in a poor attempt to avoid eye contact. He never had a good poker face, Mai thinks, as he retreats into the subdued light of her father's gardens.

* * *

_97 AG, Nunaviq, Soldier's Head_

The blue light of a dark winter shown through the window, casting shadows off a tangle of brown bodies emerging and reemerging from beneath a woolen blanket. She digs her half-moon nails into his taut back as sharp breaths escape from her lips, his hips drifting back and forth to the tempo of a smooth stroke. Working from the lobe of her ear up the length of her jawline, he exalts her skin with kisses and bites until his thrusts become so uneven he can do nothing but fist a handful of white hair.

"Nifainokqun… Sokka…" she moans, gasping. "Mm, Sokka, pull out okay?"

Pawing at a small breast with the other hand, Sokka groans into her neck as his hips pause mid-thrust. "Sorry," he says through a heavy sigh, slipping out of her and collapsing onto the bed. "When you said something it was too late, but I forgot way before that anyway. I'm sorry..." Sokka stretches out his arm to lie across her soft abdomen, but she claws it away before climbing from the bed with the blanket in tow. He raises himself onto his arms, crying out, "Yue, come on! It's fucking cold!" She missed her lunar cycle shortly after the time before last, and the weeks that followed included obsessive contraceptive measures and daily trips to the Spirit Oasis. Her father thought her increasingly pious during that period.

"I don't give a damn!" she bites. "I'm going to have to steal more white wilds from Chaña's medicinal garden now. I don't care if you're a bit chilly!"

Sokka remains silent, running his fingers through his chin-length brown hair. Their first time sleeping together in over three months and he ruins it by coming inside her – typical, he thinks. He hates to think of what Chief Arnook would do if he found him and Yue together and fully-clothed, let alone with her lying beneath him stark naked. "Yue, babe, I'm sorry. I don't have an excuse. I just got careless and I apologize for that, so I'll find a way to steal Chaña's white wilds for us. I've got a scratch from some scuffle with Hahn that needs sorting out anyway."

"The dressing on your leg? Why were you fighting Hahn?" Yue asks, climbing back onto the bed with the blanket trailing behind her. Her white, moon-kissed hair trails behind her like a sliver of moonlight and her eyes glow a divine icy blue, alluding to her spiritual genesis. When the darkness of a white winter engulfs the North Pole, Sokka often imagines that Tui will outstretch her primordial hand and take back her gift – draining the white from Yue's hair and the blue from her eyes. Then all he'd be left with is a dull-eyed corpse and two koi fish in a pond, so he refuses to entertain the idea any longer.

"I think you're confusing your words here, puddin'. It was a _scuffle_." Sokka draws Yue into the fold of his arms, drawing the woolen blanket over them with the other hand.

"Sokka, why were you fighting Hahn?"

"He's an asshole. Do I need another reason?" He quips.

"He's my betrothed. Shall we continue?"

Sokka grins, burrowing his face into the crook of Yue's neck. She's under no impression that Hahn is an impressive or even worthwhile betrothed – even though her father seems to think so – but she's also in no mood for Sokka's games. He's grown to develop a rather militant perspective wholly contrary to the North's position of neutrality, and his half-drunken bar debates fall on the ears of deaf men, along with those who have exceptionally good hearing.

"So he started talking smack about the South - our dialect, the chiefdom, and – I'm paraphrasing – our 'fucking humiliating defeat' at the hands of the Southern Raiders. At least he knows his history, right?" He laughs a humorless laugh into Yue's hair, entangling his fingers with the white strands. "Then, he starts on about how we just _let_ the Raiders rape and capture our women – like we had the bodies or benders or the technology or fucking anything to stop them, the arrogant cunt."

"What did you say?"

Sokka grinned with the pure contentment of a boy who'd just discovered treachery, saying, "I didn't say a goddamn thing. I just stabbed him in the foot."

**A/N: **Think of the Water Tribe as less North Pole (because it's uninhabitable for humans) and more Greenland. Also, the translations are really rough, so ignore them for the most part. It's more of an exercise in conlanging for me than anything else.


End file.
